Should I give up?

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So I’ve been doing Competitive Programming for roughly year now and I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress. Back in July last year I couldn’t solve a single problem in a contest and had rating of 1000 on CodeForces. I peaked at 1820 on CodeForces in April, dropped to 1550 in the last contest and today got back to 1610. I was at this rating back in January. I practice solving 2100-2200 problems. Sometimes I solve them, other times I don’t, but in the last 10 contests I couldn’t get rank better than top 1000 on CF (whereas I used to have top 500, top 300 ranks many times before). I couldn’t solve 4 problems in contest in a very long time, though I did it a couple of times before. I had another account on CodeForces before, but decided to start fresh because of dropping 250 rating in 3 contests. I really feel like I’m not improving and like I’m not gifted. :frowning: I’ve dedicated 3-8 hours every single day to becoming better and solving hard problems, but the improvement isn’t there. Is it time to quit and get another hobby?

BTW: Just so we’re on the same page, I started doing this with the purpose of entering some good college, so I need to qualify for the IOI to at least have some chance. But judging by my current progress and only single attempt left before college applications, I don’t think it’s happening.

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I am not in a position to suggest you something, but trust me, you are already doing great than 95℅ of the college grads and you wilk surely achieve really high in college. All the best buddy.

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I’m an average programmer myself, and I’m planning to learn competitive programming. I just created this account today, but seeing this makes me feel anxious. Please don’t give up!

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https://codeforces.com/profile/aryan12

https://www.codechef.com/users/aryan12

July 2020 to Jan 2021 for some motivation (both the cases).

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I personally think dedicating 3-8 hours a day is where your problem lies. Solving problems daily with a routine in my mind tires your brain which in turn reflects in your contests. Also if you keep following such a routine very soon you might even start hating CP. And believe me, enjoying CP is best thing you can get out of CP. I’d advice you to chill out. There should be days where you are thinking about a problem all day and there should also be days where you just chill out and don’t do anything. And lastly never forget the law of diminishing returns.

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I’ve always been skeptical about giving myself a break, as that would result in less problems, implying lower rating, implying not qualifying for the IOI. I do think it could have to do with this though, as I got worse after taking a break for 1-1.5 months, so I didn’t just randomly become much worse.

Thanks to all for your tips. I’m back to solving problems on CodeForces already, but I’ll make sure to take a break these days. Y’all gave me motivation again, especially @aryan12.

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One thing I have noticed is that in cp rating increase is not linear, it is always step wise.Which is because of the way contests difficulty are structured and also the number of people you need to beat increases exponentially as the rating range gets higher.So if your rating is stagnant it doesn’t mean you are not improving, it is just not visible in ratings right now.

But you can feel that improvement by yourself when practicing and that is what you should focus on.If you personally feel that you are not improving than you should think about stuff like this.Rating increase is not the best measure for growth.

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Everything is true but

imo it should be the quality of people you need to beat increases exponentially as the rating range gets higher

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Yeah you are correct. :sneezing_face:

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it’s 9 months i have been doing cp and i have also not any progress , i have rating 1201 on codeforces even lesser then specielist :sob:

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I guess its time now, @nichke you can quit competitive programming, these people are just faking in the name of optimism but you are indeed wasting your time.

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not in any position to suggest you because I am at a much lower rating but in general if you desperately try something instead of enjoying it will give you BT eventually so brother in my opinion whenever you feel like you are exhausted take a little break not long like 1-2 days solve easier problem to get back your confidence and then try again try to focus on your weak areas good luck brother

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Just to let you all know, I just did CF Edu round. I struggled to solve A and B, so I moved to D after 1 hour, solved it in 15 minutes and spent the rest of the contest on E. Finished fixing my mistake 15 minutes after the contest ended, but I was able to figure out both D and E on my own, though rating is going down to 1400 :stuck_out_tongue: Improvement is definitely there as I never imagined I’d be able to solve problems A-E, besides that I didn’t solve A-C but did D-E lol. Thanks for the support, not giving up! :slight_smile:

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Dude, just an year an already a five star? Whats the prob man? Take it as a sport, not as life-death battle. Cheers up buddy! :slight_smile:

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Just to keep y’all updated, I’ve kept grinding with some breaks in between. There were a lot of moments when I felt like giving up, like I was too dumb and simply feeling bad my rating didn’t live up to expectations. Nevertheless, I’ve mixed things up a bit with AtCoder, OI-style contests, ICPC-style contests, CodeChef and CodeForces and now 6 months later I’m reaching Candidate Master on CodeForces for the first time! I’m so excited right now! :slight_smile:

Just a month ago I was hanging around 1430 on CodeForces and after changing my mindset from getting good ranks to solving more problems, as I started to stress less over performance - the performance improved endlessly! So in just a month here I am at 1940 with over 500 point increase!

Motive of the story, don’t give up, don’t stress over performance, just stay focused and the results will surely come! In case anyone is curious - nichke over on CodeForces (ratings from the last round aren’t updated yet, but I took 247th place and am definitely reaching CM). Thanks for giving me the support and motivation to strive! Cheers!

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Keep it up! Great things take time :slight_smile:

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I’ve strongly believed that pursuing competitive programming would leave me with more opportunities with studying abroad, having great career life and what not, but ultimately it just led to countless disappointments, one after another.

Thanks to everyone for your support, but this time I’ve decided to end this journey for good. If you’re in a similar boat as me, take some time to review whether this hobby brings you happiness or not, and adjust your decision based on that. For the last 4 years I’ve dreamed of topping the leaderboard in national qualifications, yet today I’ve done the worst out of last 3 attempts, despite huge knowledge improvement and doing the best I ever did on the hardest problem.

This failure marks the end of my CP career, which doesn’t mean I won’t possibly come back in a couple years to attempt becoming red, but right now, I don’t see myself being mentally strong and motivated enough to leave all this behind and attempt qualifying for the IOI one last time.

I don’t mean to make this post pathetic or self-pitiful. Instead, I wish to provide the side of CP nobody talks about, the misery less mentally-stable ones could go through, despite the surface looks indicating strong ability and skill (e. g. 2000 CF and 6* CC would be considered strong by many, but I being in those waters am not convinced).

Good luck everyone and thanks for all the resources and help this community provided!

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I’ve strongly believed that pursuing competitive programming would leave me with more opportunities with studying abroad, having great career life

What made you believe this? Competitive programming is essentially a cyber-sport. The vast majority of gamers are playing games just for their own entertainment . There are a few professional gamers with cyber-sport as their full time job, but this is a pretty unusual career choice.

doesn’t mean I won’t possibly come back in a couple years to attempt becoming red

Do you not enjoy competitive programming as a hobby activity? What’s the point of becoming red? Do you still hope for a cyber-sport career and some material benefits from it?

I wish to provide the side of CP nobody talks about

I doubt that there are many people here with similar career aspirations.

Some people do a bit of competitive programming to prepare for coding interviews, but being a strong competitive programmer is not necessary for a software developer. Just like a certain level of fitness is required for becoming a police officer, but being a sport superstar or a martial arts champion won’t give you a big advantage over other candidates. In fact, the usefulness of excessive competitive programming for a real software development job is often questioned.

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it’s hard to see ,may be you do good!!
maintain consistency, solve daily challenge, hope good
You will surely achieve ur target!

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I never meant competitive programming to be my full-time job and a career choice, but coming from a country with a poor educational system and lack of opportunities, math and informatics olympiads seemed as the wild card for US/UK university entrance.

Sure, one may say that there are plenty of ways to demonstrate your mental ability, work ethic, qualities, enthusiasm, etc. which are all good indicators for entering a top-tier school/college, but that’s not the case in Eastern Europe where I reside. There are no clubs at our schools, opportunities to volunteer, well-recognized curriculums, AP’s, science camps, etc… You’re just a single soul in millions of other students having straight A’s, AK-ing entrance exams, etc. since our educational system is borderline pathetic, and majority of people score perfect marks/tests.

My idea with doing competitive programming was to be able to obtain scholarship to study abroad, which would require exceling to the point of qualifying for the IOI/doing well in some onsite competition. I got my chances, got sick once and made a wrong difficulty estimation the second time. Today I failed miserably in the IATI Shumen, by scoring a total of 0/600 points, across two days.

Sure, I enjoyed a fair bit of competitive programming, but the only true reason I did it was to qualify for the olympiad, which as you’ve learnt I haven’t. I’m well aware of the fact that CP has no affect on one’s software engineer career, and knowing all this, I ultimately decided to take a break.

And coming back to why I wish to turn red, well it’s the only achievment besides winning a medal in an international onsite competition which I haven’t accomplished yet, at least here on CodeChef. :slight_smile: